Marketing Industry News

We started this week off with a bang – at least in the search world, with Google now redirecting all traffic to https, i.e. encrypted search.

What that means is, if you were wondering what keyword phrases people use on Google organic search to find your website, you’re out of luck. While keywords are an important answer to the relevance of your website to buyers, now those answers are simply listed as (not provided).

Google has been masking keyword data for logged in users for about 2 years, so dealing with omitted keyword data is nothing new to agencies like yours truly at TopRank Online Marketing.

Today Google has retired Google Reader joining a long list of other Google products that have been discontinued. See a full list by clicking the Wordstream infographic to the right.

The reason offered by Google: “usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products.”

I suppose it’s to be expected when you have an organizational culture where 20% of your time can be spent experimenting on new projects. Of those that make it to market as betas, many will not become viable as contributions to the business. Luckily, in the case of Google Reader there are plenty of alternatives like Feedly.

On Tuesday November 14th we will be heading south for SES Chicago. This will be my second SES event and I am looking forward to attending sessions to continue to educate myself in online marketing, and share it with our readers, all while hanging out in the city of Chicago. I will be live blogging along with fellow TopRank-ers – Jolina Pettice, Evan Prokop, Thom Craver and Miranda Miller.

When planning any trip, one of the first things I do is map out the stops which are a MUST SEE. Conferences are no different. We follow online marketing best practices, and always have a game plan to ensure we can get the most out of the time spent at conferences.

BlogWorld 2012 – Day 1

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden and I have spent the better part of this week at BlogWorld 2012 in New York City. This was a great event in both the quality of the content, as well as the networking opportunities. This video shares some insight into the attendees of this stellar event. If you would like to learn more about what happened at BlogWorld be sure to take a peek at one of our posts covering the event:

Featured Team Story

I know from experience, wielding candy away from a baby (or in my case a toddler) isn’t actually that easy. It takes purpose, planning and creativity. Easy or Not, here are 5 must-read tips for conversion marketing to make sure you outpace your competition and reap the sweet rewards. Via Search Engine Land.

Top 250 Internet Retailers

Social networking for retailers makes sense right? Make your brand visible where your consumers are spending the most time. This infographic from Campalyst shares information on one of the things that helps makes retailers successful online, a social presence. Key findings include:

Actionable Social Analytics

This recent infographic by awareness takes a dive into social analytics. In an era where virtually every brand is online, it is essential that action is being taken off of the data we are collecting from social networks. This infographic provides not only some of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that your company should be tracking, but how to calculate these numbers as well. Examples of the KPI’s your company should be tracking:

Brand Awareness & Reputation

Marketing Program Effectiveness

Lead Generation Effectiveness

Use LinkedIn to Get Juicy Industry Scoop
LinkedIn has proven to be a great recruiting mechanism and means of connecting business professionals. Many organizations are now using the social networking platform to gain insight into potential clients. Sounds a little bit like stalking to me, what do you think? Via Inc.

Content Marketing World, We Found A Home

This recent video from Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi, provides some background into how Content Marketing World came to be. If you are big or small brand, B2B, B2C, or virtually any organization that creates content this conference is for you. Scheduled this year for Sept 4-6 in Columbus, Content Marketing World is now the largest content marketing conference in the world. TopRank is proud to be one of 4 exclusive media sponsors along with Copyblogger Media, Social Media Examiner and SmartBusiness Content Marketing.

Forget Big Brother – What About Giant Google?
Last week Google released its full FCC report which contained information about data collection from unsecured Wi-Fi connections. It appears that Google’s Street View cars were not only taking photos of streets, but were also intercepting email and SMS traffic. Read more to see what else Google has up their sleeve. Via Forbes.

Mighty Trends in Mobile Marketing

Every day we see mobile being used more and more for online shopping, local searches, email, social networking. And that is just scratching the surface. This infographic from CultureLabel.com provides insight into the astounding use of mobile for Internet searches, as well as why mobile friendly marketing should be an essential part of your online marketing strategy. Highlights include:

That’s Old News! [Infographic]

This new infographic from Schools.com dives into social media and how it is quickly replacing traditional journalism as a widely used news source. Highlights:

Facebook makes up 59.5% of news consumed online

Since 2009, traffic to news sites from social media has increased by 57%

“5 Ways Businesses Are Using Facebook Timelines” New Facebook changes are opening the doors to even greater creativity for brands. Additional storytelling and education of customers can now take place via the social networking giant. Be sure to see this post for 5 awesome tips that you can apply to your organization’s Facebook page. Via Social Media Examiner.

Instagram The Timeline

This infographic detailing the evolution of Instagram by Visually is powerful for a couple reasons, including the fact that the entire timeline is visualized through the use of Instagram photos. From launching in 2010, to their first million users, and finally to the recent purchase of Instagram by Facebook this is a must read for any fans of the popular social app.

“LinkedIn Introduces Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics” With over 150 million professional users worldwide, LinkedIn is a powerful marketing asset. Recent upgrades revealed this week that marketers can now effectively target prospective clients with advertising campaigns and deliver unique content to those users Via SocialTimes.

Social Media Marketing: The long term and short term value with Avinash Kaushik

This interview from #SESNY features Google evangelist Avinash Kaushik on monitoring social media value. Kaushik stresses that social media should be about quantifying your efforts. Companies must determine what they did that ended in specific results, and the economic value that was created due to these efforts. You can see another interview with Avinash Kaushik here on the power of storytelling and web analytics.

Tips & Tactics for Improving Your Business

“Why Relationship Marketing is Important for Businesses” This video interview with author and social media guru Mari Smith(@marismith) sheds some light on the notion of “people-to-people” marketing. In this video you’re learn why businesses must have listening skills and what businesses are doing well in relationship marketing. Via Social Media Examiner.